‘Intelligent’ devices play havoc with our brain cells

It’s not just towel dispensers in public restrooms that are getting smarter.

A lot of lower life forms are also getting brainier these days – and I’m not talking about my neighbor’s Irish setter or certain members of Congress.

Manufacturers are putting “artificial intelligence” into basic, everyday dumb devices like vacuum cleaners, toilet seats and the kitty litter box.

For less than $300 you can sit in your easy chair after a rough day at the office and watch a little gizmo spin around in circles cleaning up all the junk you dropped on the floor during yesterday’s big game.

Better watch out, Fido! It cleans up after the master but neither barks, drools nor leaves pet hair all over the couch. Even Congress can’t claim to do all that in an election year.

If you don’t think toilets have gotten smarter, next time you’re out of town, stop by Chicago’s O’Hare airport and take a porcelain cruise.

And speaking of litter boxes, don’t even get me started.

What smart vacuums, smart toilets and smart bombs have in common is a hands-off, stand-offish approach to otherwise dirty jobs. It’s all so very American.

We don’t even pick our own fruit and vegetables anymore; we let immigrants – legal or otherwise – do it for us. Imagine how much more would get done in the nation’s capital if we took the same approach to congressional membership!

I’m afraid that every time a product gets smarter, we become dumber.

The remote control for my home stereo, with its intimidating array of tiny, unlighted buttons, is a sterling example of intelligence run amok.

Heft that puppy in one hand for a few minutes while the other flips through the even heftier “Technical Operations and Study Guide Now close your eyes and imagine you “accidentally” flip that teensy switch on the side and “mistakenly” press the buttons in a specially coded launch sequence, triggering a cruise missile attack against the publishers of Dan Brown’s “DaVinci Code.”

If that sounds like a fantasy, the truth is the remote control is so feature-rich that if you want to understand its hidden secrets, you need to use the labyrinthine onscreen menu system.

There are more reasons I believe the country’s brains are turning to mush.

Thousands are purchasing home theater systems. If you haven’t gotten suckered into this black hole yet, just wait!

No, I’m not talking about high prices. I’m talking about hooking everything up.

In the HDTV world, the ankle bone may not connect to the leg bone without a special adapter, unless you have DRM or HDMI, in which case the adapters aren’t available yet.

If you’re lucky, the shiny, new smarty-pants device you’ve just purchased comes with a printed 600-page manual written by a congressional subcommittee or someone who majored in fiction-as-a-second language.

If you still have questions after wading through all that, there’s a technical support number that connects you to a very helpful but non-English speaking person – perhaps an Irish setter.

If you’re unlucky, the manual comes on a shiny little disk.

To use it, you’ll fire up your computer, wait for it to finish putting on its makeup and combing its hair, then try to find the answer to the question, “Where did I leave the remote?”

The computer will answer obediently, “Not now dear, I have a headache.”

Fortunately that little disk won’t take up much space when you toss it in the trash.

If our gadgets are so smart, why do we even have to make support calls? Why do we even need manuals?

Isn’t there “Intel inside”? Newsweek and Time explain that “Intel” is shorthand for the word “intelligence.”

At least we know they’re not talking about the current administration which, in the eyes of many Americans, doesn’t seem to have very much of anything resembling “Intel inside.”

On a serious note, let me warn you that, by letting a significant other set up a computerized litter box or home theater system by themselves, their IQ could sink to the equivalent of an Irish setter’s or even worse, a congressperson’s.

I’d reveal more secrets, but I keep getting what seems like dog hair in my eyes.